


Till Death Do Us Part

by Anonymous



Category: Historical Criminals RPF
Genre: AU, Character Death, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-27
Updated: 2018-11-27
Packaged: 2019-09-01 11:01:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16763845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Joy riding in a stolen car in the fall of 1923, they are shot at, and fate changes things.





	Till Death Do Us Part

**Author's Note:**

> Does it count as fix-it fic if Bobby is allowed to live in exchange for Leopold? I'd take that bargain any day.
> 
> Nathan Leopold is called both Nathan and Babe. Richard Loeb is called Richard and Dick.
> 
> Mostly written a couple years ago in the hopes of a much longer fic, found it today and cleaned it up.

“Shit!” Dick looked behind them and swerved blind, cutting off cars as he pushed his way into a new lane, then turned quickly onto a side street. He looked forward and laughed, reaching out his hand to trace the bullet hole in their windshield. He glanced several times in the rear view mirror, then slowed as soon as he was sure no one was after them.

  
“Fuckin’ glad this wasn’t one of our cars, huh, Babe? Doubt I could get away with another explanation about mine getting wrecked.” He glanced over at Nathan and winked at him where he was sitting back in the passenger seat staring silently through the window. “Hey, you sore at me?” He nudged Nathan’s shoulder, “Come on, we’ll go out tonight, that shitty Russian place you won’t shut up about, okay?”

  
When Nathan still didn’t acknowledge him, Dick waited a few blocks, weaving between streets on the off chance there was still someone tailing them, then slowed to a stop behind a couple of parked cars, lost somewhere on a quiet block. They were shaded by a large tree and Dick enjoyed the dappled sun on his face before he turned in his seat to stare at his friend. Nathan had slumped down a little but still stared away from him out the passenger window. It wasn’t the first time Nathan had tried the silent treatment on him, but it wasn’t like him to give no warning or the usual lecture that came along with his punishments.

  
“Babe, c’mon, at least look at me.” He didn’t give any indication he’d heard. Sick of the pouting bringing him down from his high Dick reached out and grabbed his shoulder, shaking him. “Nathan, look at me!” Nathan’s body was limp under his hand and he slumped a little further, head now pressed against the side of the window.

  
Dick’s hand tightened in the fabric of his suit. “Babe?” Dick got to his knees in his seat and reached over to Nathan, suddenly aware of a cold sweat on his forehead. He grabbed both of Nathan’s shoulders and picked him up from his slump, turning him towards the driver’s side. It seemed to Dick that for the next minute he was only able to notice small details. That Nathan’s eyes were slightly open. The contrast of dark red against his white shirt, hidden until now by his black jacket. His hair, messed up from where it had pressed against the seat, his head lolling forward heavily onto his chest. His own hands, still wrapped in Babe’s suit, starting to shake.

  
All he could feel was a cold weight in the pit of his stomach and the slow beat of his own heart. His hands skittered to the red on Babe’s chest, then back when they came away wet. He grabbed for Nathan’s wrist, fingers bloody and slippery, but he couldn’t stay still long enough to tell if there was anything there, couldn’t even remember what he was supposed to be looking for.

  
All at once he felt the ceiling crushing in on him, as if he’d wrecked a car again and he had to get out, had to breathe, he fumbled with the door until it opened, falling onto the sidewalk. He knelt on the pavement, looking at his palms, drops of blood falling sluggishly to Earth. A few people passing by stopped to stare.

  
“Are you alright?” They had to repeat themselves a few times before he understood.

  
“Mm-my friend, mm-mmm-,” He stammered.

  
He didn’t have a clear memory of what happened after that. He knew that strangers had gone over to Nathan, that one had stayed to ask him questions while the others flitted around. Back and forth, new people coming, a crowd gathering, pressing in on him until an ambulance came and took them both away. Dick fainted before they reached the hospital.

  
He remembered only pieces of the next several days. When he first woke up, Allan was there, face pale and quick to call a nurse that he didn’t need. The woman came in and Allan stepped back, watching Dick as he tried to focus on the questions the woman asked him. Yes, he was fine, just tired. Yes, he knew what day it was. No, he wasn’t hungry, thank you. No, no pain, why would there be? He frowned and looked at his clean hands. Looked over at Allan where he had backed into a chair by the wall.

  
“Where’s Babe?”

  
They tried to break the news gently, Allan, the nurse, a doctor, but there was no easy way to do it and he already knew what they were tiptoeing around. Had known it as soon as he saw those first images of Babe’s staring eyes and shirt dyed red.

  
They asked questions, about the car, where they were. He said they had borrowed a friend’s car, he didn’t remember who. They’d gone out for lunch, couldn’t remember where they were headed. Couldn’t remember hearing the shot, he must have thought the noise was something else until he noticed the hole. And that Babe had stopped talking. No one pressed him too hard. He must be in shock. They muttered that it must have been a freak thing, everyone always said this city was dangerous, the mob, prohibition, gangsters. He let them talk, anything to keep them from asking more questions.

  
Allan took him home after an hour or so, he couldn’t believe it was still only mid-afternoon when he stepped out of the hospital doors. It seemed impossible that he had picked Babe up from class in a lifted car that same morning. No one bothered him when he came home, the servants bowed their heads and avoided his eyes. They allowed him to go up to his room once he had shrugged off Allan and his fumbling condolences. A tray of food had been brought to him, but he ignored the lunch and paced his room, turning circle after circle until he got dizzy and let himself fall onto the rug. His eyes focused on something under his bed and he crawled over to it, pulling it into his arms.

  
It was a stuffed animal, a white dog with a patch of brown over one eye and a lolling felt tongue, too stiff to be comfortable against his cheek. He remembered when he got it perfectly, just a couple weeks before. Could almost hear and see the screams and cheery lights of a carnival, he and Babe celebrating a break from the rumors of Michigan by going together without dates. They’d ridden every ride before they hit the midway, popcorn crunching between their teeth, easy jokes and laughter in the air between them.

  
They were both a little drunk already and most of the money they threw into the games was wasted on their bad aim, which they laughed off, blaming the carnival rather than their swimming vision. At one of the booths Nathan had gotten lucky, and to their surprise he was told to pick a prize. The dog was chosen and they’d laughed as they staggered away, Nathan pressing the toy into Dick’s hands because he said that was the only way he’d be able to take something home that night.

  
He’d thrown the thing on his bed when he got in early that morning and mostly forgot about it. When Tommy came in before he’d woken up later that week and found him holding it Dick had easily explained that it was from a beautiful girl who was sweet on him. His eyes burned now as he held it, the dusty smell of the fairground and roughness of the cheap toy seeming to mock him and his grief.

  
It’s how a maid found him an hour later, laying half under his bed, face buried in the dog, to tell him that Mike Leopold was at the door. After he composed himself and tried to wash the red from his face he went down the stairs to meet Mike, where he was waiting in the sitting room. He turned to greet Dick and it was obvious that he’d been crying, it put Dick at ease almost, to realize other people were feeling the loss too.

  
They shook hands in greeting, and then abruptly Mike pulled him in for a hug, shaking a little as he held him. Dick circled him in his arms and felt his eyes begin to burn again, it would be so easy to fall apart here, he could feel himself teetering on the edge. He jumped off when Mike, through tears, whispered: “Thank you for being his friend. It meant so much to him.” He held Babe’s brother and cried, for the things left unsaid that hovered around them, but mostly as an apology, for the stupid, useless waste of life.

  
He started to recover until Mike asked if he’d come to the funeral tomorrow, be a pallbearer and he lost it again. Too well he remembered idle days in his room, planning out Babe’s death, smiling at the irony of putting him in a casket and then carrying it. Now the thought left him hollow. He accepted Mike’s offer. It was the least he could do.

  
The viewing was in the Leopold home, the house draped in black, flowers from well-meaning gentile friends placed on tables and grouped together in corners. People kept talking about the accident, hushed, until Dick began to feel claustrophobic again. They didn’t ask him anything, too polite, this was hardly the place, but he didn’t want to hear their theories anymore, all of which he knew were wrong. Were nothing compared to the truth. With no thought other than to escape, he climbed the stairs to the third floor and slipped into Babe’s study.

  
The air was still and the birds in their cases stared at him in dull incomprehension. He wondered if he was the first person to come in here since Babe had. There were a few unopened packages and letters on the desk that Nathan had been meaning to get to. Notes from friends. From bird groups. Dick sat down heavily in his chair and stared at them. They meant nothing to anyone now, these letters, other than as painful reminders.

  
To take his mind off the unopened envelopes with their crispness and finality, he began to open the desk drawers halfheartedly, thinking maybe he could find something to place in the casket as a gesture of some kind. He had to smile at the mix of mess and order he found, the letters meticulously filed, everything else thrown in at random. He searched for his own name among the folders and found a sizeable bit of correspondence, Dick’s own letters, mostly typed, a few handwritten. He flipped back to the first letter Leopold had saved, back from the fall a few years ago. It was short, just setting up a day for them to get together. But, checking the date, he realized that this had been right after that out of town football game. After they’d shared a bed in a hotel room and Nathan had laid beside him, anxious and stiff, staring in the dark. When Dick had gone from being a slight annoyance to an intriguing possibility.

  
Nathan had told him about this in Charlevoix, later, when Dick had asked when he’d started to feel this way about him. They lay side by side on a wide wooden dock, alone but for the waves, talking in whispers though there was no one around. Nathan had smiled when he asked, asked in turn if he remembered the football game. Babe had noticed him then, he said, the snow in his hair and his red cheeks, how he’d gotten caught up in the excitement and been a good sport when he lost a bet on the winner. He’d admired that. Out to the bar that night he’d watched him getting buzzed, but also how he managed to keep himself together, still witty, pretty, and a helluva dancer. Dick had snorted then and shoved him a little.

  
Nathan told him how he could barely sleep that night when they’d returned to the hotel together. With you in the bed beside him and he realizing how he felt. So full of want and happiness he felt he would overflow. He watched you that night, he said, while you slept and snored, restless beside him. He hadn’t touched you but he’d wanted to. And he’d imagined.

  
He’d rolled Babe off the dock then and jumped in after him, dragged him underwater, kissed him there where they could without being seen.

  
Wiping his nose, Richard folded the sheaf of letters and tucked them inside his jacket. Better if someone else didn’t find them. Better if he kept them close.

  
He ended up slipping a pack of cigarettes, mostly full, into Leopold’s shirt pocket in his casket. If he found out that the afterlife he didn’t believe in existed, Dick was sure he’d need them. He was directed to hold a place in the middle of the casket, Nathan’s brothers at the front, other friends at the back. They carried him to a hearse where his body would take its last ride. He got in with the other pallbearers, they stared at him, not speaking. He couldn’t focus on what they might be thinking. Couldn’t focus on anything but the strip of sky he could see out the window. He hoped to catch sight of some birds. Hoped that if he did see some they would mean something to him. The skies were clear.

  
There were birds in the graveyard. Sparrows that flitted around the trees, settled on headstones and statues. Dick hardly noticed. He stared instead at the hole that waited, gaping, beside Nathan’s mother’s stone, now settled and with grass covering it. Just the same as Babe’s would look in a year or so. Like it had always been there. Like nothing had changed. No hole, no casket, no Nathan. Dick’s legs trembled and he swallowed bile.

  
A rabbi read a prayer, a prayer Dick had heard Nathan say many times here, standing before the grave of his mother. Before he realized it, the casket was disappearing into the ground and mourners began to leave. Dick’s family approached from where they had been standing and when they began to nudge him away, he let them.

  
There would be days when he came back, many days when he would sit with his back against the obelisk that marked the family plot to look at the freshly turned earth. Then the grass. Then the snow. Sometimes he would mutter the Kaddish but mostly he would sit and think.

  
The letters he kept in a locked drawer. The dog remained on his bed for a while, until it too was hidden away. After a year there were no signs of Nathan in his room. No letters on the desk waiting to be answered, no poems hastily scrawled and pinned on a board, no shirts in his closet dutifully washed by the maid, shirts that he discovered were too small for him when he tried them on.

  
As the years passed he tried to remember to visit every November 19th, he’d rather celebrate the birthday than the death. The day before his wedding he went and sat by the grave for a long time. He stared at the gnarled trees and thought about the boy who might have been his best man. He imagined him, looking like a thinner Mike, standing beside him at the alter. Wondered what they would have been to each other then. Who they would have been.


End file.
